Hardiman Cureton: UCLA football Clay Matthews Jr.: USC football Dennis Harrah: Los Angeles Rams
The not-so-obvious choices for No. 60:
Chin-Lung Hu: Los Angeles Dodgers Andrew Toles: Los Angeles Dodgers
The most interesting story for No. 60: Andrew Toles: Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder (2016 to 2018) Southern California map pinpoints: Dodger Stadium
Andrew Toles (60) is acknowledged (above) by Dodgers manager Dave Roberts and coach Bob Geren and (below) by teammates in the Dodgers’ dugout after scoring on a Corey Seager single in Game 3 of the 2016 National League Championship Series at Dodger Stadium against the Chicago Cubs. Toles hit .462 (6 for 13) with an.082 OPS in the six-game series. (Both photos: Harry How/Getty Images)
Every year since 2019, the Los Angeles Dodgers try to keep it under the radar about the ways they have kept Andrew Toles in their collective hearts and minds.
In his three Major League Baseball seasons, the 5-foot-9, 190-pound left-handed hitting outfielder was in just 96 games and 249 plate appearances. His. 286 batting average factors into a career 1.9 WAR. He will likely never play again, but the Dodgers have never looked at from that lens.
In years past, by renewing him as a player under contract on the restricted list, Toles and his family have had some peace of mind that his MLB health insurance will continue. Toles’ ongoing struggle with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. The anxiety, a daily concern to his existence, was likely exacerbated by a career-setback knee injury at a time when he was making strides to be an every-day, reliable player.
One battle after another.
Media reports have made it appear there is a simple action of kindness the Dodgers take every spring, but there is far more to it. In the spring of 2026, the Dodgers eventually issued a statement of some clarification in a statement:
“We’ve been in contact with the Toles family and have worked together on how to best move forward. Continuing with the previous setup was no longer possible due to eligibility. The Toles family has asked that Andrew’s privacy be respected. Out of respect to the Toles family, we will not comment any further.”
Out of respect to this story and how the Dodgers have proceeded, it is always worthy of our attention.
Shohei Ohtani: Los Angeles Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers Bill Kilmer: UCLA football Phillip Rivers: Los Angeles Chargers
The not-so-obvious choices for No. 17:
Puka Nacua: Los Angeles Rams Carl Erskine: Los Angeles Dodgers Jari Kurri: Los Angeles Kings and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim Jeremy Lin: Los Angeles Lakers
The most interesting story for No. 17: Shohei Ohtani: Los Angeles Angels pitcher/designated hitter/outfielder (2018 to 2023); Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher/designated hitter (2024 to present) Southern California map pinpoints: Anaheim, Los Angeles (Dodger Stadium)
Everything, everywhere all at once, Shohei Ohtani’s ability to be a Major League Baseball hitter and pitcher has become the ying and the yang of a supernatural existence wearing the uniforms of Southern California’s two franchises since 2018.
To best capture what this has been like, there is an English-created adjective you don’t find in any global dictionary or with a Japanese-translatable character. Yet.
In a June 2025 Substack post, former MLB player-turned-media analyst Doug Glanville seized on what he felt was a true measurement of the seismic things worth documenting for future generations:
“I landed on ‘Ohtanic’ … ‘When Shohei Ohtani does something that only Shohei Ohtani can do.’ ” Glanville explained. “Circular? Yes. True? Also yes. … He exists in this strange stasis. Maybe like the Last Action Hero or Batman — super, but without superpowers. Ohtani does not need smoke and mirrors. He is right there, in the open. And that is the point. …
“He embodies a kind of limitless greatness, rooted in craft, powered by discipline, and entirely human. And still, that does not quite capture the essence of who he is and what he does.”
Glanville came up with this word nearly four years after Ohtani made the AL All-Star team as a member of the Los Angeles Angels. He was named both as a hitter and pitcher. He batted leadoff as the DH and started on the mound, credited with the victory in the final box score. But that’s a mere exhibition.
“Ohtanic” came nine months after Ohtani had a game in Miami for the Los Angeles Dodgers that resulted in him going 6-for-6 with three homers, 10 RBIs and two stolen bases, he reached the 50 HR mark as well as the 50 SB mark for the season. The game also clinched the NL West title for the Dodgers. Had he also pitched in that game, consider the superlatives added in.
Joe Posnanski wrote on Sept. 20, ’24: Did Shohei Ohtani just have the greatest game in baseball history? … Let’s instead call it the most amazing game in baseball history. Let’s instead call Ohtani the most amazing player in baseball history. All the great players in baseball history, Ruth and Mays and Aaron and Bonds and Gehrig and Clemente and Pujols and Bench and Ichiro and Charleston and Mantle and Morgan and Griffey and Gibson and Trout and on and on… and we’ve never seen anyone like Shohei Ohtani.
Shohei Ohtani just had one of the greatest performances in MLB history:
6-for-6 3 Home runs 2 Doubles 1 Single 10 Runs Batted In 4 Runs Scored 2 Stolen Bases
He became the first player in MLB history to reach the 50/50 (and now 51/51) club.
Then, on Oct. 16, 2025, during Game 4 of the National League Championship Series at Dodger Stadium, this happened:
Add to that Ohtani, as the starting pitcher, went into the seventh inning and 100 pitches (66 strikes) before coming out. He was credited with throwing six shutout innings and striking out 10 Milwaukee Brewers hitters. As the DH — effectively, hitting for himself — Ohtani rocked solo homers in the first, fourth and seventh innings, off three different pitchers. The last one went over the right-field pavilion roof and was listed at 469 feet, one of the greatest hit in the stadium’s history. It wasn’t even the longest he ever hit.
Sportswriters, historians and pop culture hyperbolic hyperbolists may have essentially squeezed all available digital thesaurus in landing on his status of “The Unicorn” or “GOAT of MLB history.” Still, we’re circling back to “Ohtanic.”
Like Titanic, only a larger disaster if it ever submerges into the depths of our memories as something too good to believe.
The Washington Post’s Chelea James wrote of that playoff performance: “This was Beethoven at a piano. This was Shakespeare with a quill. This was Michael Jordan in the Finals. This was Tiger Woods in Sunday red. This was too good to be true with no reason to doubt it. This is the beginning of every baseball conversation and the end of every debate: Shohei Ohtani is the best baseball player who has ever played the game … Friday night, (he) was Mona Lisa.”
Jayson Stark, writing for The Athletic/The New York Times under the headline “Ohtani, the Greatest Shoh on Earth, just had the greatest game in baseball history” declared: “A man named Ohtani had the single greatest game any human has ever had on a baseball field … assuming that term,’human,’ even describes him.” New Yorker writer Louisa Thomas checked in with: “It was the greatest performance by the greatest player in history.”
To punctuate if further, Peter Wehner wrote in the Atlantic under “A Truly Awesome Performance: “Ohtani’s performance shouldn’t be of interest just to sports fans. His triumph offers all of us a ray of hope at a troubled time. … Enjoy Shohei Ohtani while you can. He embodies athletic excellence, which will bring you joy, and moral excellence, which will bring you hope. We could benefit from some of both these days.”
That was written just months after ICE raids in Los Angeles, including the Little Tokyo area of DTLW, brought to light photos such as this:
If Ohtani came perhaps at the right time in our existence, in one stream of thought, there was another idea more philosophically obtuse that Michael Weinreb reflected on with his “Throwbacks: A Newsletter About Sports History and Culture,” under the headlined: “Ohtani Is a Hero for the AI Age“:
“I began to wonder if Ohtani’s performance will wind up meaning much of anything at all outside of baseball itself. And I wondered if — through no real fault of his own — Shohei Ohtani could wind up becoming the avatar of an empty cultural age. … He is everything and he is nothing. And you might argue, in an era where everyday life in America feels increasingly detached from reality, he is the quintessential hero of our age.”
Breath deep and meditate on more iterations of adulation:
Above is an excerpt of the New York Times’ list of the “67 Most Stylish People of 2025,” for the way he turned “a hand gesture originally featured in a Japanese cosmetics commercial into something of a craze” as he ran around the bases after a homer.
Where do we find a true origin story amidst all the Ohtani gaga?
Christmas came early for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2023, and the cross-town Los Angeles Angels were left with nothing more than a lump of coal. If only it was something more like Gerrit Cole if they could have pried him away from the New York Yankees in a deadline trade that would have sent Ohtani to the Big Apple for a different kind of curtain call.
Not only did Ohtani come gift-wrapped courtesy of the Angels, but it took the Dodgers a creative way to set up a 10-year, $700 million deal with much of it craftily deferred so it wouldn’t prevent them from building a heftier team around him. He most expensive gesture and pivotal moment in Southern California professional baseball created the most distinct example of the big business intersection of sports and entertainment.
That’s just no-sham, no-shame, global Sho-business.
In the past, a welcome-to-L.A./SoCal gala fetted for the likes of Wayne Gretzky, LeBron James, Shaquille O’Neal, or David Beckham had their own fanfare. But Ohtani was just changing addresses that involved a carpool lane on the SoCal freeway. He put in six seasons in Orange County. Now it was time for DTLA. There was no need for re-introductions, but the Dodgers did so anyway at a press conference set specifically in the afternoon at Dodger Stadium on Dec. 14, 2023 so that it was prime morning viewing in Japan the next day.
A 2017 piece on CBS’ “60 Minutes” explained to all U.S. viewers what was happening in Japan when Ohtani was 22 and trying to figure out his next move.
Earlier, Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times went to Japan as well to write about how “Japanese baseball star Shohei Ohtani could be double threat in big leagues.” The story started: “SAPPORO, Japan — The best player on the baseball team pitches and bats fourth. Not on a Little League team. Not on a high school team. On a professional team that plays at this country’s highest level. Shohei Ohtani has the kind of extraordinary talent that could change the sport. He’s done it here, and he soon could do it in the major leagues, all the while maintaining the innocence of a boy playing a kids’ game despite the scrutiny and pressure he faces as Japan’s most-popular athlete.”
When he showed up at Dodger Stadium a week before Christmas, Ohtani said through then-interpreter Ippei Mizuhara: “I am very humbled and happy to see all of you guys here … I was told that it was only media today, so I was not expecting this.”
Dodgers broadcaster Joe Davis interjected: “It actually is only media.”
That post season journey included witnessing the Nats dissemble the 106-win Dodgers, going the distance in a best-of-five National League Divisional Series. The last win was executed at Dodger Stadium. There was heck to pay.
That NL East wild-card team had the “Baby Shark” power. And Anthony Rendon’s idiotic stats (34 HRs, 126 RBIs, 117 runs, .319 average). And rookie Juan Soto’s muscle. And Trea Turner’s speed. And veteran Howie Kendrick’s grand-slam gumption. And veteran Kurt Suzkuki’s intelligence. And the arms of Stephen Stasburg and Max Scherzer and do-nothing Sean Doolittle. And a year removed from Bryce Harper.
“You have a great year, and you can run into a buzz saw,” Strasburg told Dougherty after the team advanced to the World Series. “Maybe this year we’re the buzz saw.”
These weren’t your recycled Montreal Expo who started 19-31 and ended up with the District’s first title in 95 years. We enjoyed the book as something that needed to be reassembled for our disbelief.
Because, in a way, even if we watch today’s Washington Nationals play at the Dodger Stadium, we’re still a bit history challenged.
At our last count, 17 major professional baseball franchises have called Washington D.C. their home. Many shared the same nickname. Or switched midway.
The place better known for housing the Bill of Rights may have had the right idea, but often a wrong outcome.
Before going forward, play this in the background and enjoy the tribute:
Now, we look back at history.
The reviews in 90 feet or less
So where were you when Henry Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s all-time home-run record on April 8, 1974?
I was sitting in the third-base dugout of my Hawthorne American Pony League Dodgers’ team (and we wore green and white for some reason). It’s about 6 o’clock and the sun is in our eyes as usual. Lots of squinting to see what was going on in front of us. Amidst the glare, everyone on my team — and around the park — knew the Dodgers were in Atlanta playing the Braves. A few of our parents brought their transistor radios with them, listing to Vin Scully’s call. It was also a nationally televised game on NBC, with Curt Gowdy doing it. But we had Vin.
At this exact moment 50 years ago (April 8, 1974, 9:07 pm ET), Hank Aaron made history. pic.twitter.com/IPCM7H3QFQ
There was a buzz was in the stands as Aaron hit his 715th homer in the fourth inning off the Dodgers’ Al Downing.
I knew I was going to the Dodgers-Braves game at Dodger Stadium a few weeks later. The Dodgers gave away a special poster commemorating the feat. On May 17, 1974, it was “Hank Aaron Poster Day” at Dodger Stadium — a Friday night, the first trip the Atlanta Braves came to L.A. that season. Downing actually started this game and went the first eight innings in a 5-4 loss to the Braves that went into the 11th inning (as Aaron went 0-for-3 against Downing this time.)
The beauty of this poster is that it was a chart so kids could document Aaron’s home runs in 1974 — and we dutifully logged in the information. We participated. We were invested in recording history.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Aaron’s accomplishment, so many things were going on April 8, 2024.
The Baseball Hall of Fame announced it was erecting a new statue in Aaron’s honor. An MLB Network remembrance narrated by Bob Costas. A new set of U.S. postage stamps for those who still use letters. At a ceremony before the Braves’ game, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announced a $100,000 endowment of a scholarship at Tuskegee University, a historically Black university in Aaron’s home state of Alabama.
Tom Hoffarth's The Drill: More Farther Off the Wall 